We had an amazing Release 55 Monthly Livestream on July 6, just two short days after Lord British’s birthday! We raised an amazing $54,500 by the time we got to midnight and we got all the way to the Lord British Pavers stretchgoal! We were also able to give a nice sneak peek into Episode 2. However we have more to reveal about Episode 2 and Lord British really, really wants more items in his theme (not that he is jealous of how many Darkstarr items there are…). So we decided to have a Part 2 of our Release 55 Livestream!
We plan to go deeper on some of the Episode 2 features we discussed in the first livestream, like Item Affinity, but we also plan to tease some new information too! One of the new features we plan to discuss is a set of new building tools including dungeon creation (player property) and defense building (player property, castle defenses and control points). These are part of a larger effort to increase the community’s ability to craft their own adventures that includes existing tools like notes and signs but is also expanding with other new features like advanced container settings (locks, place/take settings, etc.) along with craftable/purhasable/placeable traps and spawners (spider eggs, skeleton crypts, etc.). When you put all of these things together your ability to craft adventures will be limited only by your imagination!
Last livestream we also did not get a chance to talk another cool thing coming for Episode 2 which is the ability to “un-nest” and/or transfer your Player Owned Town into the new lands! The time is nigh to start reserving your slots on the surface of the new lands beyond Novia! Lord British himself is doing that as well! His very own Lord British’s Castle will be on the new Serpent Archipelago.
All Avatars from around the world are welcome to join us in the livestream activities. We will be continuing the deep dives, answering questions, having sales, handing out prizes, and tracking towards stretch goals. In honor of our sovereign’s recent day of birth, this event’s stretch goals remain Lord British themed and we will be picking up where we left off so the next goal will be the Lord British Round Table!
LIVESTREAM SCHEDULE (Central Time Zone)
Monthly livestreams are on Twitch and include answers to your gameplay questions, world building tours, prize giveaways, sales on items, and more! Here is the schedule:
- 3PM: Introductions
- 3:30PM: Deep Dive 1: Episode 2 Sneak Peek Part 2!
- 4:30PM: Q&A
- 5:30PM: Deep Dive 2: Housing & Decoration System
- 6:30PM: Q&A
- 7PM: Ending Announcements
STRETCH GOALS (Lord British Birthday Themed!)
As a special bonus, we are offering funding rewards to any player that makes a minimum purchase of $5 during a twelve hour window during the day of the livestream, on July 20 from 12:00 PM to 11:59 PM CDT (July 20 17:00 to July 21 05:00 UTC). You can also earn the stretch goals by being part of our Rewards Program. Our theme for this livestream is Lord British of course! In honor of his birthday many items will either have the silver serpent or the Lord British full crest on them. They will also be themed around things that Lord British loves like fireworks, space, and magic!
All purchases during the twelve hour window will count towards the stretch goals, not just the four hours of the livestream! Also participation in the Rewards Program counts towards our stretch goal totals! NOTE: We are picking up the funding goals where we left off from last time!
- ACHIEVED $10K: Blue, Yellow, Red, Silver Aerial Combo Replenishing Box of Fireworks
- ACHIEVED $25K: Silver Serpent Crackle Aerial Combo Replenishing Box of Fireworks
- ACHIEVED $35K: Lord British Silver Serpent Wand (he loves magic!)
- ACHIEVED $50K: Lord British Pavers
- ACHIEVED $65K: Lord British Round Table
- ACHIEVED $80K: Lord British Large Telescope
- $90K: Lord British Sword and Halberd
- $100K: Lord British Coronated Leather Helm and Bow
*Please keep in mind that stretch goal rewards take time to develop and will most likely not be available until Release 57 at the earliest. We will keep you updated!
CHEER ON THE DEVS
For every $2,500 contributed, all devs on camera have to dance, sing, or perform some other act of amazement.
12 HOURS OF SALES:
We will be having twelve hours of sales around the livestream from 12:00 PM to 11:59 PM CDT (July 20 17:00 to July 21 05:00 UTC)! Items in the following categories will be on sale at approx. 20% off. As noted above, all purchases during this time will count towards the stretch goals!
- Viking Bundles
- Obsidian Bundles
- Kobold Bundles
- Elven Bundles
- Shogun Bundles
- Make a Difference
- Home Decorations
- Outdoor Decorations
- Lot Deeds, POT Upgrades, Homes and Basements
- Pets and Music
- Emotes and Fireworks
- Dyes, and Patterns
WIN THESE GREAT PRIZES!
- Signed Cloth Maps!
- Light Unicorn Mask + Dark Unicorn Mask
- Lord British Rares Pack:
- 2018 Replenishing LB Cake
- Lord British vs. Darkstarr Battle Banner
- Lord British Cloak
- Lord British Shield
- Lord British Shield Pattern Pack
- Lord British Basement Hatch
- Heraldry Beer, Wine, & Spirits Eternal Patterns
- Fireworks Mega Set & Sparklers Mega Set
- Portrait Paintings Leaders Set
- Large Ornate Telescope + Ornate Moondial
- Observatory Home
We will be giving prizes away on an hourly basis with many being given away multiple times. PRIZE UPDATE: Enter for a chance to win a prize by either logging into the game and typing “Happy birthday LB” into chat OR by purchasing any item from our store during the livestream!
SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS
We will be answering questions throughout the livestream, so submit them in the comments section below or on Discord chat during the event.
Please do NOT post questions containing:
- More than 3 questions in total (post all three in a single reply)
- Bugs or other problems best posted in the bug forums
- “When is this coming” or anything related to schedule (for those answers please refer to our quarterly updates or our post release plans)
- Questions with more than a couple of sentences. Please keep them brief! We will likely understand the context of your interest, so just ask the question and we’ll be able to respond.
For bug reports and extra idea suggestions, please use the forums for this purpose.
A Final Thought: We see a LOT of repeat questions. Please consider reviewing one of the other missed question posts, previous monthly livestreams, livestream transcripts, and/or reading our Post Episode 1 plan post before posting a question. Your question might have already been answered.
Watch @ShroudofAvatar updates throughout the day of the livestream. See you on Twitch!
Will we someday have a “one world” (or one “overworld”) system??? instead of loading between Novia and the Hidden Vale…
Any plans to add a Land/Sea transport system ?
We have lot of goods that should be carried from town to town only via a transport system… placing 100k granite and 50k ore in backpacks then off we go ..should not be allowed .With Horses coming , pack animals , we can establish trade routes from town to town /or mainland to island via sea transport . We could have Transport Stations in every town, as NPC or crafted buildings people could interact with them , type name of town where they want to transport theyre goods and see what is available to rent from players or NPC … map could be interactive …to see land transport caravans and one map for sea transport ships . Also recipes to craft Ships for transport with different cargo capacity or recipes for carriage for land transport. This could be the begining to regionalising areas /markets and later players can open the interactive map and attack ships or land caravans that go through control points zones .
Any plans to add farming bonuses based on regions ?
Like Region A being more hills area all towns have 20% more yield on grape crops .
Region B is plains area so 20% bonus to potato and corn speed growth .
Can you please add more intelligence buff food that doesn’t require phoenix talons? Something equal to Bear Surprise(Strength) or Wolf Surprise(Dexterity) would be perfect.
Have you checked out the Ankh Cakes yet? Can get them from the Lord British cakes. Maybe if we reach $110k, they can give everyone a special LB cake deco that only distributes Ankh Cakes.
Yes, I did. But a 2-hour buff that I can have 6 times per year isn’t exactly what I am looking for.
There are Darkstarr Fried Oysters and Ardoris Coleslaw which provide intelligence buffs too. You can sample some for free if you stop by my Inn at Immortal City. If I’m not on, my vendor sells them.
Greetings. Thank you for having a part 2 on this Livestream. With what was discussed with EP2 it left me wanting more with lots more detail. And a chance for 3 more “Very urgent and important questions”.
Q1: Make it so we can edit dialoge on our vendors and NPCsweplace on our lots/POTs. I want my vendor to say “Thanks for waisting my tme” when ‘
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Greetings. Thank you for having a part 2 on this Livestream. With what was discussed with EP2 it left me wanting more with lots more detail. And a chance for 3 more “Very urgent and important questions”;-)
Q1: Make it so we can edit dialog on our vendors and NPCs we place on our lots/POTs. I want my vendor to say “Thanks for wasting my time” when someone doesn’t buy anything.
Q2: When we have the option to move our nested towns will we be able to change them, for example template, name, or PVP flag?
Q3: This is a 2 part question. Is it only nested POTs that will be able to move and if a non nested POT moves can one of the nested POT take its place?
Thank you for great content and hard work. And you are doing it with a smaller team as well. WOW
first question, if we have an underground template can we use catacombs in other towns to link to instead of the overworld town?
second question, I saw the op about discontinuation of shroudoftheavatar.game site. I must say I am sorry to see it go because of the localization opportunity it had. Does this mean that sota-game.com is going away also (please please please)?
third question, is the cost of the Heraldry eternal patterns out of line with the other items that you can salvage for eternal patterns? The Heraldry armor patterns have 4 pieces for $24 and the Assassin’s Armor has 4 pieces for $16. Or maybe sell each piece individually for $6. I see way too many Heraldry patterns selling without the chest and legs.
Looking forward to the new building tools! I think these will be a great addition to the sandbox.
In lieu of a question, I’ll submit a plea. *Please do not release new stretch goals until mounts is met!* By all means, continue to add new items to that goal store, with new horses and other mounts, animal gear, equestrian emotes, etc. However, adding more than one stretch goal at a time will split the community’s efforts. You have the results from the first round; use those to prioritize which order the stretch goals will be available. Push each one until its met, then move to the next one. Hopefully they will all be done by Episode 5.
Thank you so much for all of your work, and for offering the monthly rewards program!
Question 1) Has the shipping of Physical Goods begun?
In the Release Notes for R55 it states that shipping of physical goods would begin within a week. That was 2 weeks ago as of the time of this writing.
Final Assembly: Final assembly of all the physical goods has begun and shipping will begin within the next week.
+1
Vacation time will start in 2 weeks here, would like to not miss the packages.
Would also appreciate a note on VAT for EU backers (whats the value of the game box?)
Question: can you please send all packages to the same person on the same day? So I would get my several packages on the same day (important because of customs effort)
Question 2) Chris, is there an improvement to the collection of Water in the works?
On the 5th of June, in a thread about the most recent bans, you said you were going to work on an improvement to drawing water from wells and fountains; a task so tedious I’ve considered purchasing ‘throw away’ accounts to bot water collection with until it is banned… and then purchasing another account for the same purpose… repeat as necessary. This was to have been implemented for R55. Is it still in the works? What is the prospect for it being in R56?
Question 3) Darkstarr, What steps are you taking to improve communication of changes on issues such as this that are important to a large segment of the community?
Shipping of Physical Goods have been delayed again after having announced that it would begin within a week of the publishing of the Release 55 Instructions on the 27th of June, however we received no notice of further delays until the 17th of July.
Would it be possible on a vendor to preview a song sheet so you could hear a tune before purchase. I may know every song by title but not everyone is so burdened.
This would be excellent! Like a 15-second (or 1/4 of the song if shorter) song preview; you can reuse the preview button from the crown vendors. Being able to preview dyes (on your current outfit) or patterns, preview books (first 1/2 page, or 1/4 of short work), etc would be a huge benefit to those trying to make informed decisions.
On the same vein, can songs and book automatically have part of their name appended. For example, patterns all have Pattern: (or Eternal Pattern:) at the beginning. Can you append ” Sheet Music” to the end of all sheet music, or “Book: ” to the beginning of books? They all sort as though they have that, but it doesn’t make it easier to search.
Actually reminds me of Ultima games where you could request a bard to sing a certain tune for you. Not that every tom, dick, and harry vendor would be a bard ready to play a tune, but it would be cool :> Alternatively, there could be a player piano type device.
Doing it all through the UI wouldn’t be horrible, but not as fun.
Would also be nice to see the sheet music as notes visually.
Q1: Will there be more siege scenes, to match the different types of POT biomes, like underground siege, island siege, etc. ?
Q2: Will we ever be able to create books with a custom author name, so the author can be different than the crafter or player writer (scribe) ? This would be good for player-created quests and lore. It could also include books or notes without an author name at all (author name set to blank), so the origin could be left mysterious.
Q2: Can you please add small plaques to the game, usable for displays and exhibits, including ones that can be placed horizontally (on tables, floors, platforms ie. for statues), or vertically (on walls, pedestals, bookshelves) ? Also good for player-created quests.
Technical question: Do purchases in the Stretch Goal Store count toward the telethon? Technically its new money, but its predesignated as going toward a specific goal.
That would be very cool.
Could we get debris, rocks, scraps of burnt paper, and other assorted trash as deco items? There’s tons of junk in scenes I would love to litter my house with…
My question is about dungeon creation and defense building. Will you be using a plug-in like “Runtime Level Design” from the Unity Asset Store? If so, that would be awesome.
Can cats and dogs be tamed?
Will there be any use for our ships in Episode 2? We are hoping for transport, open sea fishing, treasure hunting etc. Thank you!
+1
Would it be possible to consider more than 1 vendor for rowhouses? Even just 2 vendors. I find the limit on them understandable, however, selling just every color dye takes up almost all the room on one vendor in my tailor shop and leaves very little room for actual tailored items.
Will the Offline Story Mode be getting any more attention before moving on to Episode 2?
Why do you auto kick players off of an empty server making it even more empty?
Defensive Stance provides a bonus to Dodge and Glancing Blow but only if Defensive Stance is used first. The Dodge or Glancing Blow buff icon tooltip will show that the bonus is applied if used in either order but /stats shows that it is not. I bug reported this multiple times and was told that it’s intended. Why? This is extremely esoteric. I feel that the bonus should be applied regardless of the order that the skills are used (as the buff icon shows).
Q1: What will the taming level requirements be for Wyverns and what levels (Tame Creature, Summoning, and specialization)?
Q2: Will the Wyverns be useful in combat or mainly just cosmetic?
Q3: Upper Tears has been very successful. How can put control points back on the map and spread out the love?
Any plans to make crafting profitable ? Farming can make profits… Beer can make profits …crafting equipment results in GOLD LOSS.
Take the most basic chest – Cloth Gambeson –
Costs – 5 Bolt of cotton Cloth and 6 wax thats 20 raw cotton + 15 wax (refining) + 6 wax = 80g + 60g +24g = 164g cost. We spend more on crafting materials from NPC then on our own mats for some items. Why so much wax im making a cloth chest not a honeycomb.
The NPC value for this chest is 140g and the cost to make is 164g so we actually lose 24g …we are better off just selling the cotton to NPC for 4 g each and make 80g profit then crafting anything …
+1 to this. If brewers can make tens of thousands of gold per day, why do I lose money crafting weapons and armor? Especially when only ~1/3 of crafted weapons and armor is exceptional (and therefore usable).
Agreed. All crafted items should be profitable to sell to NPC’s. And I appreciate that they made arrows a bit cheaper to make, but NPC’s sell them for about .08g each so if you want to sell them on a vendor, you have to beat that price, which means really no profit (or reason) to make them to sell to other players.
Is there any chance of offering the chance to earn a knighthood title ingame? un-landed of course so not to upset the pledgers, perhaps even knight-errant or hedge knight, so its beneath the landed nobles, I’d be happy to even purchase one.
Two of the most important and ignored questions in the forums these last weeks:
1) When is the quest architecture rewrite going to be worked on? It was a priority at the end of Q2 but disappeared completely in the Q3 Schedule and the questions asked in the forum answers were not addressed.
2) What is happening with the novel as physical update? How does it look like? Will it delay the other physical rewards shippong? This was asked like in 3 different threads and also not addressed.
Thanks!
Question 0: You should integrate the episode 2 stretch goals into the shroudoftheavatar.com landing page. It is buried. (you don’t have to address this on stream)
Question 1: Including unicorn masks in the `Mount` stretch goal implies that Unicorns will be mounts if the goal is met. Unicorns will be mounts, right??
Question 2: No one wears masks because the head slot is one of the most important. Can you please, for the sake of mounts, make the unicorn mask into a pattern?
Do offline lots have tax?